The Two-Way

As he pressed Congress for action Tuesday, President Obama stood before a group of first responders. He made the case that their departments will be hurt if automatic budget cuts go into effect March 1.

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Standing in front of first responders who he says could lose their jobs, President Obama pushed Tuesday for Congress to act now to avoid $85 billion in "automatic, severe budget cuts" set to kick in starting on March 1.

The cuts due because of the so-called sequestration "are not smart, they are not fair [and] they will hurt our economy," the president said.

If lawmakers can't agree on a plan to avoid the automatic cuts, Obama said, they should at least pass "a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms ... to give them time to work together on a plan that finishes the job of deficit reduction in a sensible way."

He charged that Republicans would rather see the automatic cuts go into effect than close "special interest loopholes." They would "rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk," Obama said.

Republicans don't see things that way. Before the president spoke, the office of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, released these statements: